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nbsp; "Turn over for me," he urged. "No leap of faith. Just a turn."
Her limbs were quivering so much she couldn't stop them, but she made herself turn. It would be necessary to let go of him as she executed the maneuver, but she should have known he would make it easier. As she rocked to her side and thought she couldn't let go, not with all this sky around her, his hand closed on her upper arm, steadying her. Her fingers released, the cool air touching the nervous perspiration on her palms, and then he helped ease her to her back. Her bare feet pressed against his calves, her toes curled on his shin bones. When he wrapped his arm over her chest, she hooked her hands into reassuring hard sinew, taking care with her splinted finger. He overlaid her crossed arms with his other one, fitting his fingers in the available spaces between those of her uninjured hand. Her head was on his shoulder, temple rolling inward and braced against his jaw, which moved as he murmured to her.
"Now, imagine you're in the water, and you're floating, watching the moon and stars, the occasional comet. The lights of an airplane. Shooting stars. The breeze on your face. And the ocean is just rocking you to sleep. The wind is singing to you, touching your face..."
He was moving the same way, a slight, gentle rock. Only instead of floating in the ocean, where inattention could result in a slap of water in her face, it was like sailing across the sea in a small boat.
She knew they were far up in the night sky. Her stomach was a ball of tension, but he had caught her that day; she couldn't deny that. He would catch her if she fell. He'd promised, after all. She could say that promises meant nothing, based on their earlier discussion, but in all honesty, no one had ever promised her anything.
This was his element. His body rested as easily in the grip of the wind as if he lay in a mother's arms.
"What would the wind sing to me?" she ventured.
He began to hum. Mina had already seen how he employed music magic in his fighting, and Anna had told her he could play any instrument. She'd also said that while he had a passable voice, his true gift was in his fingers. Mina certainly couldn't argue with the latter, but she found herself entranced as he switched to words.
He sang a poignant ballad about a boy's soft pledge to never be a burden to his girl. Instead, he would make sweet love to her, creating a quiet, dark world where there was just the embrace, the promise. And when he sang a chord about how pretty his girl was, his pretty, pretty, pretty girl, his arms tightened around her further, his fingers tangling in her hair, lips brushing her temple.
With each chorus she relaxed a little more, though she kept her hands firmly on his arm. His body was solid and strong, their respective hollows and curves fitting well. The breeze moved through his still wings, which had slowly adjusted downward and curved up such that she could lift a damp palm and rest it on the edge of one-if she was that brave-like on the lip of a boat. With the wings positioned like that, she could only see up, not down. The wind made a soft whisper of sound behind his voice.
She wouldn't have believed it, but it was as if she were under the comforting weight of a blanket. She was charmed into a dreamlike lassitude. His voice was against her ear, the vibration of it in his chest, while his arms held her, warm, strong. With her hips nestled into the cradle of his, the sensual enticement of his cock fitted between her buttocks under the silken kilt, the strap of his belt pressed against her back. His wings were still wet from the ocean, droplets shimmering off the tips, making them look jeweled in the moonlight, bringing her the faint fragrance of salt and enhancing the sense that they were in the sea.
"What is that?" she asked sleepily.
"It's an old rock ballad. Rolling Stones. Pretty, pretty, pretty girl," he crooned, his lips pulling in a smile against her temple.
"You're still so human. You know that?"
"I'm here with you now. That's all there is."
Raising her five-fingered hand, his own came between the digits, splitting them open to run along the spaces in between. It made her think of him lying between her legs so she couldn't close herself off from him. He was doing the same thing here, in an inexorable manner that turned apprehension into an unsettled yearning.
Gently, he stretched her arm out to her side and up. Coaxing her to release her hold on his arm across her chest, he moved past her breast, over the aching nipple and the phantom one to lay his forearm across her stomach. His hand molded to her bare hip bone beneath her cloak, while her fingertips brushed his elbow.
She'd hardly steadied herself from that sensation before he had her other hand lying in the cup of the upper arch of his wing, her knuckles resting in soft feathers. He stroked her wrist with his thumb, while keeping it lightly manacled, a sense of support as well as a quiet command to remain there. Trusting him to hold her without her having to hold on to him.
"Oh," she breathed, as a thrum of sensations tingled and ran down the tender underside of her arm and through her chest, doing a liquid, warm slide to her belly, lying beneath his other arm.
"Look at the stars," he reminded her, a whisper against her ear.
Stars and a moon, so bright and heavy in its lopsided crescent state, like that feeling low in her stomach. When his hand on her hip moved, her nervous hand followed. His fingertips grazed her thigh, the sensation jolting her. For all that her cloak had always provided her a versatile disguise, she was learning it did little to prevent a determined angel from accessing her lower body.
When he traced the crease between thigh and sex, her legs trembled.
"Open for me, Mina," he said. Quiet. Not to be denied. "Spread your legs so they're over my calves. Feel the air on your skin."
"I don't want to fall."
His arm immediately returned to her waist, his other fingers tightening on the wrist he had resting in his wing's concave shape. "Do you think I'd let you fall? Look up. See the stars in the sky. Feel the air moving over us, a body beneath you. There's no fear of falling. I've got you."
She could definitely feel his body, one quite hard part of him. When at last she moved, which necessarily meant her buttocks clenched, he contracted against her. Curious, she shifted again, felt him push back from the shift into a single, dragging stroke.
"Now, Mina. Spread your legs for me."
Why that commanding tone could compel her in moments like this, when so often his authority tempted her to turn him into plankton, she didn't know. But gods, it did.
As she tentatively shifted one leg, he slid down her thigh to grip her just above the knee. He pulled it over his leg, easy and steady, so the ball of her foot brushed the outside of his calf.
"Now the other. That's a good girl." It rubbed her against his turgid cock further and she registered his stifled moan. Hundreds of feet in the air or not, she was getting a strong desire to keep rubbing, to see if she could make him groan like that again.
But he had his own plans. As he shifted, tilting, her heart stuttered up, making her clutch his arm again.
"Sshh..." he whispered. "You're okay. Can you put your arms up, around my neck? Trust me to hold on to you?"
Inching her uninjured hand up first because it was closest, she found the side of his throat, the line of his jaw. His arm low on her belly shifted carefully beneath the hold of her three-fingered hand. He had a marvelously strong forearm. Roped with muscle from his knife skill, she assumed, and she let the thought of that tangible strength bolster her. He was here, solid, real. He wouldn't let her fall. She couldn't believe in anything for long, but he'd said if she could, just for a moment...
He helped, guiding the other hand into that harrowing arc over her head. Her upper body lifted as if seeking his touch. His fingers whispered over the broken finger.
"I wish you'd let me heal at least that."
When she shook her head, he sighed, pressing a kiss to her temple, putting her hands around his neck.
The sky was vast, a jeweled dome around them, everything for her to fear far below. She'd never seen so many stars, and realized they must have ascended above the
cloud cover, for her breath was short, as if the oxygen was thin. At least that was what she told herself. The immensity of it all was overpowering, and yet somehow reassuring.
As her fingers twined in his hair, warm at the nape of his neck, the cushion of wings brushed her wrist bones. His hands were under her cloak, stroking her skin, learning her.
His total attention absorbed her. She'd had adversaries, or those who'd mistrusted her-which was everyone, except the foolish Anna-who watched her every move. She had to gauge their every reaction as well, being just as wary. This was so different from that. Her body was resting fully in the cradle of his, and her focus was on what those clever fingers would do next. She didn't have to think, be defensive...
Just for this moment...
As he was discovering her response to each unique touch, so was she, for no one had touched her like this before.
His fingers moving up her thighs curled something in her stomach, and even in her chest, making her shudder, making her thighs tremble and the flesh between them swell. The rush of air over the sensitive and still deliciously sore opening told her those lips were wet, needing again.
His other hand slid down her rib cage, tracing the bones there, then explored her hip bone, across to her navel, a tender outline, a gentle probe.
"You're not ticklish."
"No. I don't... What's ticklish?"
She felt that smile again. "You answered the question, sweet witch."
"You didn't."
"I'm not telling you, because you'll figure out a way to use it against me." He moved up under her breast, his knuckle sliding along it as she gasped, for his lower fingers pressed over her clitoris and then down, seeking that wet heat.
A star shot across the sky, ending its life as others burned with fierce brilliance, not conserving their light or worried about their end. And why would they, when they could have that final blaze of glory across a deep, dark sky? Where did shooting stars go?
